This is a column I wrote for The Fresno Bee at Christmas time in 2006. It’s about the hustle and bustle of seeing loved ones during the holidays, dealing with fractured families and trying to not disappoint anyone. I looked it up earlier this week and was reminded it’s still one of my favorite columns.

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I’ll be, ahem, ‘home’ for Christmas
By Mike Osegueda / The Fresno Bee

The questions already have started.

Where are you going to be? When are you going to get there? When are you going to leave?

He answers the best he can, trying to be honest, trying to make everything happen and make everyone happy — that’s a fine line to tread.

There are gatherings to plan, presents to open, holidays to celebrate. Of course they want him there for as long as possible.

They’re his family. It’s the holidays. That’s just how these things work.

So he tries his best to remember it all. The aunts are coming at 3 p.m. Presents will be opened at Dad’s house at 10 a.m. He can’t miss dinner. He just can’t, or Mom will be hurt. It’s at 6 p.m.

Eventually, he can rattle off all the plans like they were the words to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

That’s not the hard part. The hard part is Stretch Armstrong-ing himself to three places at once.

This is the holiday ballad of the kid from the broken home.

This time of year is tough for him. Tougher than anything.

Mom and Dad in different houses, brothers and sisters at each, rounds to make, holiday cheer to keep up. It has been like this as long as he can remember, so he deals with it.

He’s never known what it was like to have a normal Christmas.

You know, like the ones on TV or in the movies — the whole family wakes up, opens the presents, then runs off to play with them. The kids smile. Mom and Dad drink coffee in front of the tree with a fire burning. There’s no rush, no clock to watch, no phone calls beckoning him.

Mom and Dad? Together? Ha! Mom and Dad are so separate, they get different Christmas lists.

For him, it has always gone this way: Wake up. Open presents. Enjoy them for a few seconds … now it’s time to go. To shuttle off to the next house, to the next family, to the next gathering awaiting his presence.

They can’t start without him, so everyone else had to wait. Try explaining that to a 6-year-old sibling, “It’s the holidays. This is just how these things work.”

Eventually, he got older and he could drive. That would be the solution, he figured. He could get himself from place to place quicker. No need to depend on a tired parent who had been up too late wrapping presents.

That would make everyone happy, right? Umm, sorta.

There were still a bunch of youngsters. Kids more excited and less patient than he. He hears the excitement in his voice for days leading up to the big day, the day when Santa’s treasures awaited. He can’t let his siblings down, either.

Waiting 30 seconds is a long time. Wait 30 minutes? You’re crazy.

Year after year, he’s piled it on, tried to make it work, tried to perfect it.

And just went he thought he got the whole thing down pat, then came the girl.

At first, that wasn’t a big deal; they were just dating. No worries. But then things got serious.

It went from him “making an appearance” to him going to church with her family.

He has to do it — he put a ring on her finger; they’re planning a wedding; her family is now his family. It’s the holidays. That’s just how these things work.

Her family is small, close-knit, normal. He has wondered what that was like.

No time to think about that, though. Now there’s another family to juggle.

That means more questions to answer, more gatherings, more people to make happy.

He’ll do his best to be everywhere at once, to see it all, to not make any little brother wait too long to tear open a present.

No, it may not be normal, but it’s the only thing he knows.

It’s the holidays. So he makes it work.

*This originally appeared in The Fresno Bee in December 2006. They own it. I hope they don’t get mad that I’m posting it here.